LaRoche continued his hot hitting in September and has turned into a Mets killer. He is hitting .361 against the Mets this year and is hitting .393 with five home runs and 15 RBIs since September 5. LaRoche has turned into the Nats dominant bat in the final run to October.

The Nationals victory came at the expense of New York starter Bartolo Colon, who had his own problems with inside pitches. After LaRoche homered in the first to score two runs, Colon hit the next batter, shortstop Ian Desmond. When Anthony Rendon homered in the fourth, Colon then hit Jayson Werth — and Colon was tossed from the game.

While it was obvious that Colon had hit Werth on purpose, the Nationals right fielder later said he wouldn’t speculate on whether that was the case: “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter what I think,” Werth told reporters. “The umpire thought so. He hit Desi earlier in the game after a homer. He hit me right after. The home-plate umpire thought that was enough.”

The Nationals also got solid pitching from the Washington bullpen, which worked out of two potential Mets rallies. The Mets loaded the bases in bottom of the seventh and the bottom of the eighth innings, but Craig Stammen dampened the Mets in the 7th while Tyler Clippard tamed the Mets in the 8th.

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: Okay. Okay. Okay. We were wrong. Back before the All Star break would took issue with the decision to put Pirates outfielder and sometime third sacker Josh Harrison on the All Star team, pointing out that his numbers didn’t reflect the honor, and plumping for our own nominee, Adam LaRoche . . .

We’ll stick by the spirit of our claim, particularly given LaRoche’s amazing September, while acknowledging that Harrison has become Pittsburgh’s MVP — and that in spite of (and while acknowledging) yet another solid season from last year’s MVP, Andrew McCutchen. Harrison led the N.L. in total bases in August with 71, extra base hits with 19 and a slugging percentage of .602 . . .

Harrison could also win the N.L. batting title. Harrison is hitting .314, while N.L. leader Justin Morneau is hitting .317. And Harrison has been tearing up opposing pitching in September: he’s 11-32 since September 1 with four doubles. And at third base, Harrison has been a whiz . . .

Washington righty Stephen Strasburg reversed his road woes (he is 2-8 while pitching away this year), throwing seven innings of snappy three hit baseball, as the Nationals extended their dominance over the New York Mets, winning 4-1 at Citi Field and sweeping their three game series.

Strasburg was all but unhittable in the Nationals triumph. “He really had fastball command from both sides of the plate. That’s where it starts with him,” Nats skipper Matt Williams said of his starter’s outing. “If he can do that, it just opens up everything else. He pitched well. He had a jam in the middle inning and he got out of it with a great double-play ball. He pitched well.”

Harper’s recent performance has been a boon for the Nationals, who are counting on added production from their left fielder now that Ryan Zimmerman is on the disabled list. “If Bryce gets on track, watch out,” MASN commenter F.P. Santangelo said after Harper’s fourth inning home run.

“His strength is coming back, and if he gets a ball that is in a little bit, sometimes it hurts him. He feels it for a day or so, but that is part of the process coming back from that,” Williams said of his young star. “He is getting stronger by the day. He is seeing it better.”

The Nationals scored their runs against New York starter Dillon Gee, who proved effective against the Phillies in his last outing (one run in seven innings), but was undone by Washington round-trippers on Thursday. Gee was among the stalwarts on New York’s injury riddled starting rotation at the beginning of the year, but he left the ball in the middle of the plate in last night’s loss.

But the big news of the night was Stasburg, who was trying to bounce back from his worst outing of the season against the Braves — a five inning seven-earned-runs affair versus Atlanta. The righty ace was anything but shaky against the Mets, throwing 101 pitches, 66 of them for strikes.

“This game is funny,” Strasburg told the press after his win. “You can always learn something new. I think I’ve had bad games on the road. I think there’s things that I do that put me in a position where they can take a better swing at it. I’m just going to keep trying to learn as much as I can.”

Washington wrapped up its three game set in New York by relying on their shut down bullpen after Strasburg left the game at the end of seven. Tyler Clippard pitched a no hit eighth, while closer Rafael Soriano held the Madoffs hitless in the 9th, notching his 28th save.

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: The lone New York run on Thursday night came off the bat of Lucas Duda, whose single scored Nats killer Daniel Murphy, who’d singled off Strasburg to start the bottom of the 4th. Murphy has always hit well against the Nats, but as Matt Williams put it earlier this week — “the truth is that Murphy hits well against everyone . . . ”

The Nationals sweep in New York probably ended whatever hopes the Mets had of a post-season berth. Mets manager Terry Collins told the New York press following his team’s schooling of Philadelphia (last week), that they shouldn’t count New York out of the post-season just yet. But it now looks official: the Mets are eight games under .500 and 10.5 games back in the N.L. East . . .

Collins has been under scrutiny in New York, where Mets watchers have consistently questioned his odd in-game decisions, as well as his team’s inability to get on base. But the questions have apparently had little effect on the front office which, according to some baseball analysts, has decided to bring him back for a fifth season . . .

Friday night’s victory over the New York Mets may well have marked the ultimate expression of closer Rafael Soriano’s habit of getting into deep trouble, but then managing to notch yet another save. On Friday, it was Jayson Werth who came to the rescue with a last second leap against the right field fence to save Soriano — and the game.

Werth’s acrobatic leap came on the last swing of the night, when the right fielder nabbed a long line drive off the bat of Daniel Murphy with two on and two out. The catch preserved a hard fought 5-2 Washington victory. “I probably should have untucked my shirt, but I didn’t,” Werth joked after the win, referring to Soriano’s signature game-over habit.

Washington scored all of their runs off of Mets’ starter Jonathan Niese by the end of the third inning. Washington scored three in the first on a Jayson Werth single and a Wilson Ramos sacifice fly. Washington capped their attack in the third inning, with a Scott Hairston double and a Tyler Moore single. Washington sprayed an impressive eleven hits in the contest.

Nats’ manager Matt Williams pulled starter Tanner Roark after the fifth inning, in deference to New York’s lefty weighted line-up — bringing in Ross Detwiler in relief. The Nats bullpen was perfect thereafter, with Detwiler, Drew Storen, Tyler Clippard and Soriano holding the Mets to three hits and no runs through four complete innings.

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: You would have thought that by now the Nats-Mets rivalry would be among the most bitterly fought in all of baseball. But that’s hardly the case. The Nats have won nine straight against the Apples, dating from last season. Dominance, it seems, does not a rivalry make . . .

The Lords of Baseball would have it otherwise, but the hype has never fit the facts. Even as MLB pushes the match-up as of abiding and traditional interest, the two franchises have forever been going in opposite directions: when the Nats were lousy (as, you might remember, they once were), the Mets were playing for pennants. Now, their roles are reversed . . .

Ian Desmond hit a 9th inning single with the bases loaded, and Tyler Moore followed with another hit, as the Nationals pushed across four runs against Arizona reliever Brad Ziegler — and the Nationals went on to win the third game of their three game Diamondbacks series, 5-1.

The four run 9th inning unlocked a straight-up pitchers duel, which featured a solid outing from Nationals newcomer Doug Fister. Fister threw seven innings of five hit baseball, matching Arizona’s Brandon McCarthy who went eight innings while yielding just two hits.

“We needed this one,” Nationals manager Matt Williams said after his team’s victory. “It salvages the road trip. It started off really bad and it’s nice to get this one and head home on a positive note.” The Nationals will get a day off before beginning a six game home stand against the Mets and Reds.

The Washington 9th inning started when Ziegler issued a walk to Denard Span, which was followed by a double to right off the bay of Anthony Rendon. Ziegler then intentionally walked Jayson Werth to load the bases. The next hitter, Desmond, then put Ziegler’s 84 mph sinker into left field, scoring Span and Rendon. Tyler Moore’s single then scored Desmond and Werth.

Fister’s outing came as a relief for the Nationals, who view the righty (acquired in an off-season trade with the Detroit Tigers), as filling a missing piece in their rotation. After spending the start of the season nursing an injury, Fister’s first start in Oakland (where he gave up five earned runs in just 4.1 innings of work) was not auspicious. But the former Cat turned it around on Wednesday.

“He had good stuff,” D-backs manager Kirk Gibson said of Fister’s outing. “He was changing speeds. He’s got a really good sinker and he was throwing it to both sides of the plate. He started going to his offspeed stuff later in the game, and he just had us off balance. He threw a good game.”

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: The Mets seemed to have the Yankees number this week — until last night, when the pinstripers push their best pitcher to the mound. In their first two games of the Mets-Yankees subway series this week, the Mets pummeled the Gehrigs, plating 21 runs while notching 24 hits . . .

The Mets outburst was met with head-scratching bewilderment by the New York media, which focused more on Yankee lapses than the Mets’ brilliance. Perhaps that’s understandable: the Mets took all four games in the subway series last year, and the first two games in the 2014 campaign set the tone for Yankee mediocrity . . .

The hero for the New Yorkers on Saturday was Zack Wheeler, the young right handed hurler that has teamed with the now-injured Matt Harvey to give the Madoffs hope for the future. Wheeler tamed the suddenly hot Washington line-up by pitching into the 7th inning while holding the Nationals to five hits and two earned runs.

While the Nationals couldn’t get on track against New York’s rookie, Dan Haren had his worst outing of the year. Haren gave up nine hits and seven earned runs before being relieved in the third. Nearly everyone in the Mets’ line-up teed off against Washington’s pitching: Eric Young, Daniel Murphy, Josh Satin and Juan Lagares each had three hits in the game.

“We know that we’re running out of time,” center fielder Denard Span, who was 3-5 on the night, said. “Each game that goes by, it’s getting even more and more [important] for us to win. Tonight, just a terrible game. The type of loss like this came at the wrong time.”

Despite the Mets’ seventeen hit barrage, there was little praise for Washington’s in-division competitors. Haren claimed that he had good stuff and Denard Span pointed out that the Mets were lucky to have some hits fall in. But it’s also true that the Nationals didn’t hit when they needed to, spraying eleven hits but leaving fourteen on base.

“We know what we’re up against,” Haren said following the loss. “Everyone is pretty down in here right now. We’ll go home and get sleep and come back and try to win tomorrow and go from there. There’s no use being down about it too long.”

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: The 2003 Seattle Mariners were a heck of a team. Jamie Moyer won 21 games for the Navigators, while Gil Meche and Joel Pineiro anchored a sold staff, including a steady bullpen. But Seattle’s greatest asset was its defense: the team committed just 65 errors in 162 games, an MLB record . . .

Ryan Zimmerman’s walk off home run in the 9th inning of the second game of a day-night doubleheader gave the Washington Nationals a desperately needed 2-1 victory over the New York Mets on Friday. The Zimmerman home run salvaged a day that saw the Nats fall to the Mets 11-0 in an embarrassing first game that saw the team collect just eight hits.

The 11-0 blow out marked the nadir of the Nationals season, as the Mets victimized four Nationals pitchers, including hard-luck ace Jordan Zimmermann, who gave up five runs in 6.2 innings of work.

“It’s over,” Nats’s skipper Davey Johnson said of the blow out. “I hate to even be in here talking about it.” The Mets kept the Nationals off the board by playing off the arm of rookie Jenrry Mejia, a former top prospect whose young career has been interrupted by Tommy John surgery and elbow tendonitis.

Starter Jordan Zimmermann, meanwhile, just couldn’t seem to get on track. The Ace of Auburndale gave up a home run to Daniel Murphy in the 1st inning and then another one to Murphy in the third. Murphy was 4-5 in the game and batted in five of the Mets eleven runs.

The Mets 9th inning barrage was a home town nightmare: a walk (to Omar Quintanilla), a double (off the bat of Juan Legares), a single (from Murphy), another single (from David Wright), a double (from Marlon Byrd), and a home run, off the bat of Ike Davis. The runs came off of relievers Ryan Mattheus and Drew Storen, who was sent to Triple-A Syracuse at the end of the day.

The Nationals needed to recover the confidence of their home town fans in the wake of their 11-0 thrashing, but they did so in fine style — and by relying on the arm of spot starter Ross Ohlendorf, who dueled Mets’ phenom Matt Harvey through seven complete inning of work in the D.C. nightcap.

There are just certain pitchers that the Washington Nationals can’t seem to hit — and the Mets’ Dillon Gee leads the pack. Gee scattered six hits over six innings while striking out three and the Mets downed the Nationals at Citi Field on Saturday afternoon, 5-1.

The game marked the debut of Washington newbie Taylor Jordan, who threw into the fifth inning before being pulled by Nationals’ skipper Davey Johnson. Jordan, slotted as a sinker specialist, pitched well enough to merit another start: and he will face the Brewers at Nationals’ Park on July 4.

The Nationals defeat was marked by sloppy defensive play, with Washington committing three errors, two of them on the same play in the bottom of the 5th inning that gave New York two runs. The errors broke up a 1-1 tie.

Two of those errors were accounted to Ryan Zimmerman, on a booted infield ball and then an errant throw to the plate. Ian Desmand was given an error trying to get a runner at third. Zimmerman now has an inexplicable twelve errors on the season, which leads the team.

New York, meanwhile, got to Washington’s pitchers for nine hits, which included a 3-5 day for second sacker Daniel Murphy and a 2-4 day for shortstop Omar Quintanilla. Craig Stammen, relieving Jordan, provided his first poor outing since early June. Stammen gave up two runs on three hits in just 1.2 innings of work.